focus : week 11 – IAMX, The Death Set, and Does It Offend You, Yeah?

March 11 – The Death Set are a pop-punk, dance punk band that has made waves with their début album in 2008. The Death Set’s new sophomore album, Michel Poiccard, which sadly comes prefigured by tragedy gets it’s US release on Counter Records. As the band were about to embark on writing a new album together one of the members, Velasco, who had struggled with drug addiction on and off throughout his life, died of an overdose. Sad as this event is, it did lead to fantastic emotional songs.

March 15 – Classified as everything from dance-punk to synthpop to electro house to new rave to indie rock, Does It Offend You, Yeah? release their second album, Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You via The End Records/Cooking Vinyl. Surely this will get lots of press, so do yourself a favor and go listen to the album for free, available all this week at AOL Spinner.

March 18 – Chris Corner, of Sneaker Pimps fame, is releasing a new album for his project IAMX called Volatile Times. Currently the album has no North American release date, but the camp at IAMX says they are working on it. In the mean time you can get digital files or order an import. If you are lucky enough to be sitting in Europe be sure to check out IAMX live as they are currently on tour.